My Take on Feedback Strategies

(Freshmen year, I received a lot of rejection from various groups I applied too, however, now I see myself turning down opportunities. I think this quote puts that into perspective.- Image provided by- Padlet)

The article that immediately caught my attention was Why Do So Many Managers Avoid Giving Praise? by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman. The title is intriguing, but this article is not what you may think it is. I love that article begins by describing the stress that the manger felt in delivering the feedback. This was interesting because I tend to think of feedback as a positive, but in this sense, it was viewed as a negative by the managers. Analyzing the chart, it shows that managers who only give negative feedback are equally as ineffective as managers not giving feedback at all. However, those giving positive feedback are much more effective and the same as giving positive and negative feedback. Throughout my leadership positions and jobs, positive feedback has been my prime method of approaching situations. Considering the "you did great here! so proud, but... here is how you can improve." This helps the employees but it also improves manager-employee relationships. An important thing pointed out in the article is that sometimes managers only point out what's wrong, but I think it's so important to present this wrong in a positive demeanor.

The next article I read was Five Reasons to Stop Saying "Good Job by Alfie Kohn. This article seemed interesting because it was the complete opposite of the one I read previously, which was encouraging positive feedback! But, the point of the article in to investigate the misused sense of praise, rather than attacking people for being encouraging and loving. The article mentioned 5 reasons to stop saying "good job" or giving false praise to kids. The first is "manipulating children", in which we sugar coat everything to our children, but are actually breeding them to become dependent on us for praise. The second is "creating praise junkies" where we are making kids relay on our evaluations of their performance and not their own. The third pointed out is "stealing a child’s pleasure" which is described that when we give praise, we are indirectly telling our child how to feel about a situation. In a way, we are manipulating their emotions. The next is "losing interest" in which if we give too much attention to children for an activity, it may become boring to them and they may lose interest. And the fifth is "reducing achievement". This is when we say things like "good job" even when something isn't good. This article was eye-opening because I tend to think more in terms of positive feedback (like the first article), but I see where the author of this paper is coming from. However, I still think positive feedback has more plus points then harm!